


How to Disappear

by lightsinthedistance



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Angst, Emotional Abuse, F/M, Female Reader, Fluff, Hurt, One Shot, PTSD, Psychological Trauma, Second person POV, Toxic Relationship, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-13
Updated: 2021-01-31
Packaged: 2021-03-16 09:55:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,015
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28704759
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lightsinthedistance/pseuds/lightsinthedistance
Summary: “Screaming matches and gaslighting. Fights picked to see the other hurt. Genuine attempts to tear each other apart.“All the ways that the man you’d loved had dissolved before your eyes.”Reader reflects back on the last days of her and Poe’s relationship.
Relationships: Poe Dameron/Original Character(s), Poe Dameron/Original Female Character(s), Poe Dameron/Reader, Poe Dameron/You
Comments: 6
Kudos: 18





	1. Chapter 1

31 ABY, 9 years earlier than present, Resistance Airfield, D’Qar

_ Warm light on warm-toned skin. A sheen of bronze. Warm brown. Curls that your fingers beg to be sunk into. _

_ Your eyes drag along your pilot’s features as morning heat is beginning to permeate the air, a sharp contrast to the cool metal of the X-Wing that the two of you are resting on, eyes on the horizon. _

_ His hand is tracing slow circles on your arm as you nestle against him. This is one of the few peaceful moments of the day, a predecessor to the chaos, violence, and stress that will remain till nightfall. _

_ “Come on,” he’d told you earlier, a groggy, sleepy you tiredly staring up at him from the mattress. “Get up. D’Qarian sunrises are gorgeous.” _

_ And so he’d dragged you from bed, all the way to the deserted airfield, where the two of you reside alone. _

_ The sky is red, orange, yellow, white—so picturesque that perhaps you could be convinced it’d been created by a thousand deliberate brush strokes, each one laid down with the utmost care. _

_ Despite your rude awakening earlier, you’re willing to admit that Coruscanti skyscrapers, Naboolian waterfalls, and pristine Hothian snow banks having nothing on this. _

_ You let out a soft breath, bathed in warmth and gold, and press a soft kiss to your pilot’s cheek. _

..::::.. ..::::.. ..::::.. ..::::..

Present, 40 ABY, Galactic City, Coruscant

You fingers trace linen, making the bed. Soft and warm and limp. Lifeless as the room it is present in. The cloudy, rainy day generously illuminates the space. Grey walls. Grey sheets. Grey sky.

You go for the nightstand next. Junk and miscellaneous objects that you toss behind you to dispose of. Long lost objects making a reappearance.

Photographs sending you down memory’s lane: you standing in the ruins of a newly liberated Coruscant. You and Jessika Pava on the tarmac of a runway, in front of the latter’s X-Wing, four thumbs up in total between the two of you.

An alias card from your time undercover on Corellia. Only a reminder of the three friends you’d lost that day in a shootout, not of any of the valuable intelligence you’d gathered.

A war medal for courageousness and honor in desperate times. Carelessly shoved in the drawer in the midst of one of your panics. A futile attempt to cast the war out of your life, out of your conscience, out of your mind.

Your heart claws at your throat at the memorabilia, but something draws you in, keeps you pulling items from the drawer, as if you are craving the hit of pain and nostalgia each one gives you.

And then one last item. A little X-wing model. Barely three inches long. Black. An orange stripe going down the side. A tiny dome of a droid in the back: orange and white.

You remember when your pilot had shown you. He’d returned from a mission at 3 AM, had sat on your side of the bed, brushing your forehead with his fingers to wake you, for he couldn’t wait till morning. ‘ _Baby, look what I found_ ,’ he’d whispered excitedly.

His curls had fallen messily across his forehead as he animatedly talked about the little model that he’d stumbled upon and how he’d gotten the seller to customize it.

Annoyance was the first thing you’d felt, but his excitement had changed your mind, made you become enamored with the way he spoke: so happily, so genuinely, with such passion. Somehow, it’d eventually ended up in your possession.

A small, sad smile cracks over your lips as you relive the memory, though you barely know why the smile is there. The relationship that this little model had come from, well…it’d ended in pain:

Long nights spent in tears, hands in your hair, on cold balconies in the darkness. Him in bed, curled into a ball, shaking and forbidding himself from crying.

All from the screaming matches and gaslighting. From fights picked to see the other hurt. From genuine attempts to tear each other apart.

All ways to mask your own pain.

All ways for him to hide his weakness.

All the ways that the man you’d loved had dissolved before your eyes.

..::::.. ..::::.. ..::::.. ..::::..

34 ABY, Six Years Earlier, Soon After Poe’s Return from First Order Captivity, D’Qar

_“What the hell?” Your voice cracks against him as he enters your shared quarters. Your fury consumes the room, reaches for him, grasps for him._

_His face is one of shame, yet a lingering hardness hides beneath it._

_“What the hell were you thinking?” you repeat forcefully, remembering the news you’d heard just half an hour ago. How Poe had flipped out. How he had punched an insubordinate pilot in the face._

_Poe stands before you, saying nothing. His silence only infuriates you more. He is stoic, terrifyingly emotionless._

_“The pilot made a stupid decision,” he finally says quietly._

_Your arms are crossed across your chest, a solid six feet between you and him, a cold, impenetrable barrier of space. “So you decided to punch him?”_

_Your eyes are ablaze, but you are not angry. You’re simply worried. And confused. This had never been Poe. He was a soldier. Violence was an inherent part of war, but he himself was never inherently violent. Only when he had to be. Only when the lives of others were at risk, only when the greater good was at stake. You’d never seen him hurt anyone who didn’t truly deserve it._

_Until now.  
_

_He does not answer your query on his course of action. You’re shocked at what he’s done, but you question why you even are._

_There’d been warning signs. Blatant ones._

_His return from the First Order had brought many things. Increasingly prevalent nightmares. Panic attacks. Outbursts of anger where he got in your face like he never had before._

_The both of you stare each other down, gazes mixing in anger and desperation and confusion. A heat rises to the back of your eyes as you look at him, his form broken and hurting and defeated._

_“Poe,” you mutter, walking up to him and gently clasping his face between your palms. Your facade of anger has finally broken. “Poe, please.” Your tone is urgent, your voice cracking, your hands shaking ever so slightly. He tenses up under your touch instead of melting into it like usual. So you sink further in, wrapping your arms around him, burying your head in the crook of his neck. “Let me help you,” you whisper. “Let me be there.”_

_He pushes you away, and you stumble backwards in your unpreparedness, barely catching yourself before you fall. You stare at him in shock. Sure, maybe you’d expected him to return the embrace with a certain coldness, maybe even pull away._

_But the feel of him pushing you…going on the offense, rejecting you…_

_He refuses to meet your gaze, his hand on the back of his neck. You feel a small tear run down your cheek. “What’s happening to you?” you whisper, begging with him, pleading with him and any other higher power to give you answers._

_He lets out a deep breath. “I don’t know.”_

_And that is all he says. Plain and simple. He doesn’t lie to you. He never does. But somehow, the vagueness surrounding his state is worse than a blatant, stinging lie._

_“Tell me you love me.” Your voice comes out as a plea, desperate in its timbre and tone._

_Your eyes follow him as he sits at his desk, beginning to fill out some reports. Not a single word leaves his lips._

..::::.. ..::::.. ..::::.. ..::::..

Present, 40 ABY, Galactic City, Coruscant

The X-wing model is made of a soft wood, covered in a specialized paint. Indentations stand out on the sides, where it’d been jostled around, struck against other objects in a frenzy of movement. In short, it is beaten up, just like everyone and everything else who had lived through the war.

Like yourself. Like Poe.

Scars on skin as a testament to the hardship and danger the two of you as well as many others had perservered through.

You remember his skin well. Soft and bronze and warm. Long nights twisted in sheets, limbs intertwined. Your fingers tracing along his own marks.

A small white line on his forehead from a ship crash. Raised flesh on his stomach from shrapnel. Scar on his upper leg from torture. Circular mark on his left arm from a blaster bolt he’d taken on a star destroyer.

You have your own set to match his, hideous reminders of the events that had changed both of your lives.

But he had damage behind his physicality too: nightmares and hyper-vigilance and paranoia. He was not perfect. It would be a lie to say that he was.

But you loved him in spite of it.

You loved him for his bravery, for his charisma. For his never-ending optimism that brought a smile to your face.

For the courageousness and work ethic that gave him his ace piloting skills. For his eternal kindness. For the commitment he showed to everyone and everything.

He had the ability to be all-in, and once he was, he would do anything for that person. That was a fact.

But diving further in, beyond his physicality, beyond his war trauma, there were further flaws.

You can trace it all the way back to the first figure in his life who had departed for death: his mother.

She’d been the first softness in Poe’s life, and upon her passing, had left him alone with his father—a virtually emotionless, stoic, at times, callous person.

You have no doubt that Kes Dameron was a good man. He was honorable and brave, traits that he’d passed down to his son. But old values and instincts die hard. From what Poe had told you, Kes was impenetrable, inflexible, had been raised on the concealment of weakness.

And naturally, what Kes’s nurturing had instilled in him went down to Poe.

You saw it in the pilot clear as day. In your years you’d spent with him, you can count the number of times you’d seen him cry on one hand. Virtually nothing for a man who knew a lifetime of pain.

But he had his ways of coping with the feelings of weakness. Ways that brought out something ugly in him. It seemed that the whole process ran like clockwork:

A distressing event would come about. You would go after him, try to reassure him. He’d snap at you. The two of you would storm away from the other, say unforgivable, demeaning words in your own heads. He’d apologize and kiss you and shower you with words spilled from his silver tongue. And the cycle would repeat. Over and over. A never-ending, torturous path that neither of you had the guts to break from.

In short, he denied his weakness so consistently that it was as if he believed that it had the capacity to bring about his final hour. A dynamic man, it was the only area where he never budged.

Of course, there would be periods where it was better. Where he’d tell you everything on his mind and let you hold him. But there were also times to counteract those: a callous remark to rebuff your attempts to help, a menacingly loaded word of rejection that would leave you broken.

And when everything really started to grow worse, times when he genuinely scared you….

..::::.. ..::::.. ..::::.. ..::::..

34 ABY, Six Years Earlier, Flee from the Finalizer, The Raddus

_It’s been eight months since the destruction of Starkiller Base._

_A joyous defeat of the Order. An unfathomable victory._

_But you know that it’s undeniable that victory never lasts. It is a cyclical concept, for victory is always stolen before being re-seized again._

_So that leaves you here, with the rest of the Resistance, on the run once more, the remains of your old base a pile of ash in the midst of a once beautiful planet, now desecrated with the remnants of dead hope._

A sick feeling is settled in the pit of your stomach. Poe’s broken look at his demotion is burned into your memory, The image of Leia lying limp haunts your mind. An impending sense of dread for your own survivability is settling on you. Holdo had told you nothing, had told  everyone nothing.

_You know that she is not obligated to, but when your life is blindly placed into her hands, you rightfully hope for something._

_Poe is worse. He is pacing, pacing, pacing… Hands in his hair, his waist, his pockets, unsure what to do with them. He’s mumbling something under his breath, panicked and expletive-filled._

_The tense energy he exudes rubs off on you, upping your stress with each pace, each movement, each mumble._

_“Stop,” you snap. “Pacing isn’t going to do a damn thing.”_

_He snaps his head up to look at you, his eyes narrowing. “Better chance of doing something than you just sitting there and staring at me like a fucking lost puppy.”_

_Your fingernails dig into your palm, clenching your fists. You know what you want to say—you are certain of it. It’s terrible, unforgivable, fueled by your anger, and for that reason, you hold it back._

_You only continue to stare, but now, something is new, something hesitant hidden behind something dangerous._

_“Fuck it,” he mumbles before leaving the room. You don’t know where he’s going, what he intends to do. You cannot be bothered at this point._

_But as the seconds drag by after he leaves, the silence begins to get to you. His possible actions begin to concern you. He could be doing something dangerous to others, or dangerous to himself. Hell, with the state he’s been in and the state you’re in now, you briefly consider that he’d gone to off himself._

_So with a sigh, you drag yourself up, heading around the ship, listening for his voice, looking for his brown jacket._

_You walk in the Command center just in time to witness him shove a metal basket of files off a desk, flip a chair with a loud crash._

_You stare in shock, mouth agape. His look is inflammatory, perhaps mildly deranged._

_He yells something at Holdo, but you don’t hear it. All you can see are childhood memories. Plates smashing against walls as your parents scream at each other. A fist flying into a cabinet. A broken mirror._

_And suddenly, Poe is your past, a reflection of everything you believed you’d left behind._

_It is almost instinctual when you walk towards him, grabbing his wrist and pulling him out of the room. Yet another loved one that you’re dragging out of their own mess. In fact, the whole situation reeks of tragic familiarity._

_You keep your gaze down, avoiding the eyes on the both of you, avoiding Poe’s half-hearted tugs to escape your grasp._

_His lack of conviction, however, ceases the moment you pull him into an empty room._

_“What the hell?” Your voice comes out as a yell. You’d never been a yeller, but you cannot help it now._

_“Those transports are unarmed. She’d going to get us all killed!” He is pacing again, round and round, but now he’s shaking. His eyes are set in a glare, his mouth in a thin line.  
_

_“She’s a celebrated admiral, Poe.” You lean against a table in a useless effort to calm yourself, arms across your chest. You’re shaking too, fending off the distress you’re feeling. “In times like these, I hardly believe she doesn’t know what she’s doing.”_

_At your words, he snaps his head up from the glass he is filling with water in the corner of the room. “‘Knows what she’s doing?’ You think her jeopardizing all of our lives counts as ‘knows what she’s doing?’”_

_“You don’t know all the facts.” Your words, with no proper context, would’ve been neutral, a voice of reason. But in that moment, they are incendiary, and you watch as a rage overtakes his face.  
_

_“You…you and your goddamn blind trust of authority!” You blink and suddenly a loud shattering noise permeates the silence between words, making you shrink back. Broken shards of the glass he’d been holding lay on the floor, water still dripping from the wall he’d thrown it against._

_Your eyes are wide as you look at him. You know he’d never hurt you—you’d always truly believed that—but as he stands there wild-eyed, you feel your belief begin to waver. You have an urge to slowly back up against the wall like a scared, cornered animal._

_But as seconds pass, his figure goes slack, and he lets out a held breath, staring in shock at the glass on the floor. He pulls out the nearest chair, sinking into it and hiding his face._

_The urge for you to run from the room is strong, but his pull on you is stronger, and you find yourself dragging up a chair beside him and pulling him into your arms. You can’t stop yourself from comforting him, you realize. No matter how much the cycle hurts, he always draws you back in without even realizing that he makes you feel like you’re dying inside._

_For that’s how the way you feel could be best described. Like your insides are shriveling up, embodying decay as you hold him. As you relive the last low and tiredly prepare for the next one_

_He begins to tremble, and it takes you a moment to notice that he is crying. A broken iteration of your name leaves his lips, his face buried in your neck, his hands clutching your forearm. “I’m scared,” he whispers. “I’m so fucking scared.”_

_As you stroke his hair, you know that he is scared of far more than simply losing his own life. He is scared of what will happen to you. What will happen to the entire galaxy without the Resistance. What will happen to liberty, justice, and freedom._

..::::.. ..::::.. ..::::.. ..::::..

Present, 40 ABY, Galactic City, Coruscant

_I just want to forget my fear._

Those words that had left your pilot’s lips years ago grace your mind all of a sudden for reasons unknown to you. It’d been whispered at three in the morning, when he’d held you against him in a small, simple bedroom, not totally unlike the one you’re in right now.

But despite your racing thoughts, you shake your head, trying to quell them.  _That’s over_ _,_ you tell yourself.  _It’s all over. No need to dwell on it._

You sigh, throwing the X-Wing model back in the drawer and pulling yourself up from the ground.

As you exit the bedroom, floor-to-ceiling windows present to you the sprawl of Galactic City. You are back home on Coruscant now, the planet once again shining after the brutal reign of the First Order.

After you’d left D’Qar, after you’d left Ajan Kloss, after you’d left Corellia, your home had been waiting for you.

Two dogs run about your feet as you pour yourself a cup of caf to start the day. The sun is only now rising despite you having woken over an hour before.

The tiled floor is cold as you sit at the dining table, the wedding ring on your left hand glinting in the sunlight. It was two years after you’d left Poe that you’d met your now-husband.

The man who’d put that ring on your finger was kind and sweet and smart, still is. A lawyer. He’s never flown an X-Wing in his life, has never even fired a blaster. He betters the galaxy in his own way. But most importantly, he gives you what you’ve always needed, something you’d never been able to obtain with Poe.

Stability.

In contrast to the pilot, your current love is predictable, empathetic, soft-spoken, a reliable pillar in your life. He comes home each night around seven, half an hour after you return from work, and gives you a kiss. Sometimes you make dinner, sometime he does. And he is there for you when you wake in the middle of the night in a cold sweat. Ready to take care of you when you need it. Ready to kiss every inch of you and tell you that he loves you on the days you feel worthless.

You take a sip of your caf before taking out your holopad, pulling up a document now edging on forty thousand words.

_Perseverance in Times of War: My Fight Against the First Order_ , it is titled.

You begin to type, but you are distracted. The little X-Wing model’s image is seared into your mind, along with the man it brought memories of.

You can almost see the pilot that had once been yours, pacing around this apartment, leaning against the counter, a cup of caf pressed to his own lips as he makes a witty remark that draws out a laugh from you.

Even in imagination, his aura plagues the air about you: infectious, contagious, and invigorating.

Every inch of you tries to push it away. You know what you had with him wasn’t healthy. It was toxic, draining, and at times, humiliating. But you cannot help it.

You can practically feel his arms wrap around you from behind as his lips touch your neck. “How’s the writing going, sweetheart?” he asks, his eyes scanning the screen.

The way you picture him is the way he used to be before his captivity, before the war began to grow serious. Thoughts flash through your head of how you’d watched him disintegrate from someone so full of life to a mere shell, plagued and forever haunted by anger and terror.

And as your eyes trace the horizon in the distance, you absentmindedly mumble a single sentence to yourself.

_This is how people disappear._


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “He likes to believe that you’d slipped from his grasp, lost in the flurry and obstacles of a Galactic-wide war, as quick and as natural as leaves scattered to the wind.”
> 
> “But he knows that’s not true.”
> 
> Poe deals with the aftermath of his and Reader’s relationship, as well as who he is.

34 ABY, Four Years Earlier Than Present, Resistance Base, D’Qar

_“Poe. Calm down.”_

_He can sense you standing a few feet away from him, your figure tense and tentative, a silhouette against the softly lit night outside._

_There is too much surrounding him. Too many blaster shots, too many roaring ships, too many bangs. All encapsulated within his mind in the middle of a silent room._

_The overstimulation of his senses nearly makes him want to whimper, makes him want to scream. But he suppresses it. He buries his head in his hands, and grips and squeezes and tugs in an effort to ward off the feeling._

_“Poe.” Your voice sounds as if you’re at the end of a tunnel. “Poe, can I touch you?”_

_He’s not sure if he nods or not, but he feels your fingertips all of a sudden, making him flinch back._

_“It’s just me,” you murmur. “Can you hear me?”_

_His eyes remain clamped shut as memories of blood and death and pain run through his mind._

_“Poe, I want you to nod if you can hear me. Can you do that?”_

_Your voice is soft, gentle, like you’re talking to someone wounded. He fights something mechanical in his head in order to make his body respond to his brain, to make his chin bob up and down once._

_“Good. Can you open your eyes for me?”_

_He doesn’t want to. Maybe it’s the darkness that’s allowing his flashback to be expressed with an acute vividness. Maybe it is the opposite: that when he opens his eyes, everything he is imagining will be there in front of him._

_But he fights that too. And with a seemingly tremendous effort, his eyes snap open, exposing the warm brown to the room._

_It is just a room. No carnage. No ruins. But he can still hear sounds. Perhaps if he sinks down into himself far enough, he can see a corpse in the corner, a discarded blaster on the ground._

_“Tell me some things you see, love,” you murmur. “A few.”_

_His breath shakes as his eyes scan the room. You lean against him, wrapping an arm around his shoulder. “A brown chest of drawers.” He takes in a deep breath, slowly letting it out. “The door. My boots. My traveling bag.”_

_“Now something you can hear.”_

_“Wind.” An eerie howling. A roar of a ship that he tries to shake from his head. “Cicadas.” A constant chirp that reminds him of the outdoors, of lushness and life. “Water running through pipes.”_

_As he takes more deep breaths, reality seems to cement itself once more. Excess noise ceases, returning to its most basic form. Nature, structure, and life._

_He finally tilts his head up, catching sight of himself in the full-length mirror across the room. He is hunched over, sweating, trembling. Pathetic. You beside him, looking down at him in concern._

_And all of a sudden, without warning, one thing floods his mind, invades his thoughts: humiliation._

_The thought of himself—a Commander who’d led forces into war—shrunken down makes shame wash over him._

_Your hands feel too much like a pity as he imagines nonexistent condemning thoughts going through your head._

_“Get off,” he hisses, jerking away in an instinctive response, and you’re forced to rest a hand on the bed in order to steady yourself._

_Your eyes widen as he walks towards the door. “Poe, where are you—“_

_“I don’t know.” And he’s gone._

..::::.. ..::::.. ..::::.. ..::::..

Present, 37 ABY, Galactic City, Coruscant

Soft skin, soft hair, and a presence too soft to even remotely entice him. 

That is all Poe knows of the unfamiliar girl who lies asleep next to him in the unfamiliar hotel room, her bare back exposed to the cool air. 

His head throbs, an inevitable repercussion to his drunkenness the night before.  _Too many drinks and too many flirtations_ , he thinks, turning over to get a thorough look at his bedmate, a look not constantly interrupted by desperate kisses and touches, not hindered by darkness.

His first thought is that she vaguely looks like you. Same color of irises, same figure, same color of locks. But perhaps her skin is a little smoother, her hair a little softer, her lips a little fuller—differences so numerous that perhaps, to the objective viewer, she is almost an “upgrade.”

But she is not you. 

Personality aside,  _you_ would not be lying next to him.  _You_ would not be on the other side of the bed instead of nestled in his arms.  _You_ would not still be there, letting him feel you in the most intimate way possible.

As he stares at the ceiling and ponders why exactly his mind has chosen to relive that memory of you in particular, he mulls over a single idea stained with guilt: he was the one who had broken you to pieces. 

_But does that really matter anymore?_ , he wonders.

He tilts his head to the side, Galactic City greeting him cheerfully through the window. Sunny and busy and alive. He knows you’re out there somewhere, somewhere among all the buildings.

The end of the war had brought a re-established New Republic to the Galaxy. The Senate and court had gone to Coruscant. The military had gone to Chandrila.

But Poe is far from Chandrila’s Hanna City—perhaps still close, for he is still in the Core, but nonetheless, he is millions of miles apart from his duty and home. This is not his element. This place is a land of lying politicians, a land of organization that pales in comparison to the militaristic uniformity he is accustomed to. All he wants to do is get out.

But today is supposed to be a happy day. Today is when the spoils of war are supposed to truly be reaped. Today is the trial of one General Armitage Hux. 

Despite having traveled the distance already, a small part of Poe does not want to go. He knows that you’ll be there. His reluctance isn’t even due to the awkwardness that will arise—it’s from the impending pain that he knows will come.

Seeing your face. Hearing your voice. Being forced to have an actual conversation with you.

He knows that looking into your eyes will only be an agonizing reminder of the night that had made everything between the two of you go up in flames and fall back to the ground in ashes.

..::::.. ..::::.. ..::::.. ..::::..

35 ABY, Two Years Earlier Than Present, Resistance Base, Ajan Kloss

“ _What is your problem?” Your voice is raised, your form tense._

_He watches from the window, where his eyes trace the horizon. For a second, he cannot even remember what he’d said. When he does, even then, he is unsure if his memory is correct. It was certainly something incendiary…something mean._

_He is even unsure of how the two of you got here. Maybe you’d said something about him needing to see a therapist or something about how self-destructive he was. Everything—the minutes, the days, the words, the touches, the fights—it all blends into one now._

_You’re talking on, but he isn’t listening. He can feel your presence emitting fury, but something within him stops himself from paying you any attention. Deep down, or perhaps maybe somewhere just below the surface, he knows that you deserve his attention, his love, his patience, for even when the explosive fights occur, and he drives you away in tears, you still return to him._

_“Poe!”_

_The yell snaps him out of his haze, and you’re standing closer to him, arms cross. Eyes hard, but bottom lip trembling. He sees recognition cross your face as it hits you that he hadn’t heard a word of your speech._

_You shake your head, a bitter laugh leaving your lips._

_“Do you even give a shit anymore?” you ask. “About any of this?” You gesture to the two of you. “Or are you just going to wallow the rest of your goddamn life away in self-pity, hurting yourself because you won’t get help?”_

_“I don’t want help.” His voice comes out flat, emotionally over any feelings your fights with him elicit._

_“Yeah? You don’t?” Your tone takes on one a of a venomous mockery. “You’re just going to keep hurting everyone around you like a spoiled child?”_

_At that, his head snaps up, feeling the urge to throw something, to hit something, something close to him, something—_

_He stops the thought, wisely opting for the verbal approach instead and suddenly turning around. The top of your head barely comes to his eyes. “Do. Not. Accuse me of hurting people around me.”_

_You stand your ground, daringly pulling the figurative strings between the two of you tighter and tighter. “You don’t see that you’re hurting me?”_

_“I think it’s you who starts the predicaments that hurt yourself.”_

_At his words, he watches as your eyes widen at the coldness, as your fist clenches so hard that your arms shake. If you’d been angry before, it is nothing compared to now. “I’ve been nothing but patient with you, Dameron.” Your voice is shrill and uncontrolled, several pitches higher than usual. “Nothing but there for you. And I think it’s borderline maniacal that you don’t realize that you treat me like shit!”_

_His jaw clenches, his knuckles turning white as he grips the windowsill. When he speaks, it’s a yell, his deep voice booming in the small rom. “Well if you don’t like, then fucking leave!”_

_You stare at him a moment, your form relaxing into something more reminiscent of defeat. “Alright.”_

_And then you’re gone, never to return to him._

..::::.. ..::::.. ..::::.. ..::::..

_Present, 37 ABY, Galactic City, Coruscant_

He groans as he carefully rolls out of the bed, getting dressed. The unfamiliar woman shifts at his action, groaning softly as she wakes.

“Hey,” she mumbles, watching him from the covers. His eyes catch on her, and Poe doesn’t even notice he has frozen until she gives him a weird look.

She looks too much like you. He’d noticed the similarities earlier, but now, he can’t stop seeing them. Maybe the similarities were the reason his drunken mind had chosen her in particular the night before, but now, he just wants her out of his sight.

“Hey,” he finally replies, a small, forced smile on his face. He very obviously glances down at his watch, muttering something about how he has to be somewhere—he doesn’t—but he needs out.

So he says a quick farewell, walking out the door before she can say another word.

As he rushes down through the lobby, a quick glance at his watch serves as a reminder for why he’d gotten so drunk the night before in the first place. It is an anniversary. 

It was three years ago that the Resistance’s D’Qar base had been annihilated, that he’d single-handedly taken on a dreadnought, a small part of him hoping that he’d fail and go up in a ball of flames, that he’d put a blaster in his mouth, contemplating whether or not to pull the trigger. 

He stops at a café on a whim, ordering some caf and sitting on the rooftop deck, looking out over the city. It’s a place that had filled him with so much wonder as kid. The sheer size of it compared to his Yavin IV colony had been almost too much for his young brain to comprehend. The million of ships had dazzled and overwhelmed even his wildest dreams. So as he sits there, he knows that he should be appreciating it more than he is.

But all the city does is remind him of you, and part of him wants to curse you out for ruining it for him. But he knows it’s not your fault. It is his. Most of it is.

It was also six years ago that he’d had his first major falling out with you. Although your relationship had hobbled on another year, that falling out was when it truly died. When he’d thrown that glass against the wall with a loud shattering noise, releasing his anger and fear in violence. You’d been scared.  _Terrified_ . Of him. 

And the look on your face had broken him. 

_You could snap me like a fucking twig if you wanted to._

Those had been your words when you’d sobbed in his arms a day later over a discussion of that event. Perhaps the statement could’ve been an exaggeration, but in a situation with no weapons nor surprise to your advantage, maybe it could’ve been a truth.

He sighs, doing the one thing he does best: diverting his attention. He pulls a notebook out of his bag, opening it up to a complicated, increasingly messy diagram of the last remaining First Order stronghold in the Outer Room, littered with X’s, corrections, and annotations. 

This stronghold had been the subject of the main strategy room back on Chandrila for months now. Seemingly impenetrable, complex beyond belief based on their sparse reconnaissance reports, both in structure and the terrain surrounding it. Dense foliage ruling out an air attack, ships posing too much of a risk risk of hitting the surrounding labor encampments. In short, it’s a headache.

He goes through two cups of caf as he thinks and strategizes, using up the time before the trial. And when that time comes, Poe takes a deep breath, his hand clenching into a fist as he stands.

..::::.. ..::::.. ..::::.. ..::::..

Present (Cont.), Galactic Court, Galactic City, Coruscant

Poe had decidedly arrived at the trial twenty minutes late, missing the reading of Hux’s extensive list of crimes that he simultaneously does and does not want to hear in full. His reason for being late had succeeded. He didn’t even have to make eye contact with you.

The trial had been a success. Life in prison for the General. Poe is on a mental high as he walks through the halls of the ornate court building, it’s structure unmarred by war, unlike many of the buildings surrounding it. The war had been won two years ago. Countless lesser generals and colonels had already been convicted before the overwhelmed judiciary had gotten to Hux. But Poe did not fully believe that victory had truly been won—until today, when Hux had officially been brought to his knees.

Poe finally arrives in an empty hallway, leaning against the wall, letting out a deep breath as a bright smile plays out across his face. All of the pain, all of the suffering, all of the danger—it had all led to this, where the last remaining First Order higher-up had been put behind bars for life.

But as Poe thinks, a small component of the soft bustle in the distance begins to approach him in the form of voices, ones he can’t help but listen to.

“This blouse fucking itches.”

“Hmm…all the more excuse for me to get it off you when we get back to the hotel.”

A cross between a gasp and a laugh. “Don’t speak so loud! There are people—“

When Poe hears the familiar voice engaged in a rather suggestive conversation, it is too late to move and make a run for it, for he recognizes the voice. His mind doesn’t have long to linger on your counterpart’s words when he comes face-to-face with you.

It is certainly a situation where one could mutter a quick apology and keep walking, but the past dredges up an instinct to halt, to fully take into account the person standing opposite from him.

The sight of you takes his mind off the whole conversation. You look identical to the woman that had left him long ago.

The both of you had frozen, staring at the other. “Hey,” Poe finally chokes out.

Your companion is the lawyer from the courtroom who’d represented the state, looking very confused at the hesitant, frozen reaction you and Poe had had upon the sight of one another.

“Hey,” you whisper, barely audible. 

The lawyer blinks, glancing at you when you throw him a look. “I…umm…left something in the courtroom. I’ll be right back.” 

And then it is only the two of you once again.

“How are you?” You offer him a small smile, pulling the coat tighter around you.

“I’m…I’m well,” Poe says, scrambling for words. “You…you look well…and happy.” 

It is the first conversation the two of you have had since the screaming match that had ended it all nearly two years ago.

“I am,” you simply say. “Much more so than before.”

Although the ‘before’ is never specified, he knows what you’re talking about.

“Haven’t seen you around Coruscant lately,” you continue, shifting uncomfortably in place. Even though there were a trillion beings on the planet, the circle of those in government was small, especially those tasked with rebuilding the galaxy.

“I stuck with the military. Been out on Chandrila.” A small pause. “I see you made your way into politics.”

You nod. “I have.” Your gaze flicks to the ground for a moment before resettling on his face with a seemingly newfound focus. “It’s a shame you’re not in Galactic City for good, Dameron. You’ve always been a good leader. The real fight is here now.”

“I know,” he sighs. “But this place isn’t for me.”

The lawyer makes a reappearance at that very moment, almost as if on cue, placing a gentle hand on your arm, mumbling something inaudible to you.

“I should…I should go,” you say quietly, shifting slightly to the side.

“Right,” replies Poe. “Good to see you.”

You give him one last smile before you round the corner.

He lets out a seemingly held breath, slumping against the wall, his grip weak on the files in hand.

“Was that that asshole you used to date?” He hears the lawyer’s voice faintly in the distance, no doubt thinking that Poe is already long gone, not lingering where he’d been.

“Yeah,” you reply, a pause sounding where there may have been a quiet sigh. “He’s not an asshole. Probably shouldn’t have pinned it on him as much as I did when I told you. Life just dealt him a bad hand of cards.”

Poe’s eyes shut at your words. 

..::::.. ..::::.. ..::::.. ..::::..

_Dealt him a bad hand of cards._

He scrawls those words in the corner of his notebook in a disinterest of the previous task at hand. Letter to words to concept to supposedly the very essence of him.

He strings those ideas together in his head and simply stares.

..::::.. ..::::.. ..::::.. ..::::..

Present (Cont. 2 Weeks Later), New Republic Base, Hanna City, Chandrila

“Get her in here.”

“W-what?” Poe chokes on his water.

His immediate boss, a general and a former Resistance colonel, stares at him blankly, his head momentarily lifted from the diagram of the First Order stronghold they were still trying to crack. “I said get her in here.”

Poe is not sure how he’d gotten here. It’d started with a mention of your name, then a confirmation of who you were, then a casual remark from his boss on how good a strategist you’d been back when the three of you had worked together in the Resistance.

“But she doesn’t…she doesn’t work for the military anymore,” says Poe dumbly, blinking. He hadn’t even wanted to see you back at the courtroom, but being forced to spend hours with you, in a room, bent over a map and strategizing…

“She still works for the government, right?”

Poe nods.

“Well then we can still get her here if she agrees. I want her take on this stronghold bullshit,” the general says. “Get to it, Dameron. Send her a formal letter of request.”

“I’m not an errand boy,” Poe protests. He swears that he can see the general roll his eyes at the words.

“It’s not an errand,” the general responds. “It’s a militaristic necessity. I want her in here by the end of the week. Go.”

..::::.. ..::::.. ..::::.. ..::::..

Present (Cont.), Hanna City Gardens, Chandrila

Cherry blossoms. Red hibiscus. Calico flowers spilling over walls and trees, lush and verdant.

Those are among the things that capture his eyes as he strolls beside you through Hanna City’s gardens. In short, you’d accepted the request for you to come, and determined to ease the agonizing awkwardness, he’d asked you for a walk.

“We were one hell of a pair,” you say, coming off a laugh he’s pulled from you with some remark that he’d already forgotten.

He smiles. “We certainly were. Me in the pilot’s seat, you in the gunner’s…”

An air of comfort has settled in around the two of you, warm and inviting, lacking any of the coldness that had been present before.

“You place a lot of flattery on your piloting abilities.” The corners of your lips twitch.

“Is it flattery, though, if it’s true?”

You laugh, sighing, a bright smile on your face. “Classic Poe.”

He shrugs. “What can I say?”

You go still all of a sudden, your gaze turning to a small, bright yellow flower on the side of the path, speckled in orange and red. Your fingers caress it, tenderly tracing the petals.

“We did make one hell of a team,” you repeat, your voice quiet and nostalgic.

A silence passes where something else originates in the air, not quite awkwardness, but something far from the comfort that had previously been.

“Can I ask you something?” You don’t look up. He can only assume your eyes are still locked on the flower.

He shifts slightly on his feet. “Of course.”

“Did you ever love me?”

It is his turn to freeze, for his eyes nearly widen. He stares at your back in shock for a few seconds before his hands reach out, gently clasping your arm and turning you to him. Your eyes travel on for miles, the space within them boring into his consciousness.

“You know…,” he begins. “You were always so level-headed…so logical and sensical. But I think that question is the craziest thing you’ve ever asked me…”

He’s closer to you now, and you look up at him, your mouth in a small frown. “So you did?”

“More than anything,” he whispers, barely resisting the urge to wrap his arms around your waist and press his lips to yours. As you look back at him, he wants you to feel the same—he _needs_ you to.

“Do you still?” you say quietly, a certain pain reflecting in your eyes. 

Something in his heart constricts at your query. He takes a deep breath, pushing out a lie with an immense difficulty. “No.”

A small part of him—no, all of him—wants to find some protest leaving your lips, some semblance of tears in your eyes, some sign of reciprocation. But you do none of that. One simple word leaves your lips. “Good.”

Your words are like a slap to his face, stinging and angry.

You glance down at your watch, stepping back from the intimate position, preparing to depart for an event that you’d told him of earlier. But before you leave, you emit one more sentence, turning back to him, expression cold and suspiciously closed-off. “You’re a liar.”

..::::.. ..::::.. ..::::.. ..::::..

Poe sits in his quarters the following evening by lamplight, evaluating some of your ideas on the plans. But he is distracted. Rejection is the only thing on his mind. He wants to be mad at you, at how callous you’d been, but were you really?

His eyes flip the page and flick to the words scrawled in the corner, ones he’d written two weeks ago.

_Dealt him a bad hand of cards._

He grimaces. It feels like that idea is all he’s been trying to shake since he can remember. It’d followed him around, whispering behind his back, around walls, from the mouths of family, friends, neighbors.

The death of his mother.  _What a poor little boy._

Death of his grandmother.  _Seems like life’s got it in for the him._

One of his dearest friends: dead at sixteen with a bottle of pills next to them.  _Probably going fuck up the rest of that Dameron boy’s life._

You staring back at his blatantly hurt expression in the Hanna City gardens, a thought he knows that is going through your head: something along the lines of pitying him.

When Poe had run away to Kijimi or the New Republic or the Resistance, or when he’d yelled at you, when he’d lashed out at you—a small part of him believes that he did it just to prove that life hadn’t gotten him. That he was still strong. That he persevered.

But as he sits there, in his desolate, dark, and lonely quarters, for the first time in his life, Poe admits that life  had gotten him. A reel of recollections plays in his head.

Reckless stunts pulled in the hopes of dying like a martyr.

Impassioned speeches fueled not by pride and courage, but by anger and hate.

Cruel words that led to dark scenes of you curled up in bed, sobbing.

The image of you walking away from him, two weeks ago, someone else on your arm.

He likes to believe that you’d slipped from his grasp, lost in the flurry and obstacles of a Galactic-wide war, as quick and as natural as leaves scattered to the wind. That no matter what either of you could’ve done, the two of you were destined to separate.

But he knows that’s not true.

You had not slipped from his grasp. He’d pushed you away—and had kept pushing you away every time you’d tried to regain your footing with him.

He sighs, walking to the window and staring at the city along the horizon, sparkling in the night.

He thinks of how it could’ve been had you still been with him—had you not disappeared from his life. Perhaps an apartment on the highest floor of Galactic City the two of you could afford. No more screaming. No more ruthless fighting. None of it.

As his eyes survey the distance, he knows one thing at the moment. He knows that if he could somehow have you again, he would never let go.

**Author's Note:**

> Hey guys, I’m super proud of this one, might even be my favorite one I’ve ever written. It is heavily inspired/based on How to Disappear by Lana Del Rey. Go give it a listen; it’s great.
> 
> As always, let me know what you think in a comment!
> 
> Thanks for reading!
> 
> -
> 
> Come visit me on tumblr! @lightsinthedistancee


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